Urbanism

The transportation sector is about to experience its biggest shake-up since the combustion engine replaced the horse and carriage. Electrification, automation and the sharing economy are converging to change the modes we use to move and the services we expect.

Explore this transformation with Tim Papandreou, the leading global expert in the future of mobility and automation who led strategic partnerships to commercialize Waymo and launch the world’s first fully self-driving ride-hailing service.

The City of Vancouver and City of Surrey will also take the stage to talk about their joint Smart Cities Challenge proposal.

Following his presentation, Tim will be joined on stage for a moderated Q&A with Andy Yan, director of Simon Fraser University’s City Program.

Thursday, Jan 24

6 pm

SFU Harbour Centre, 515 West Hastings, Room 1400

This event is free but registration is required due to limited seating available. Save your spot.

One of the most talked about pieces of public art in Vancouver is Ken Lum’s large and recognizable “Van East Cross” located near 6th Avenue and Clark Drive. The Van East Cross was installed in 2010 and was part of the 2010 Winter Olympics Olympic and Paralympic Public Art Program, Mapping and Marking.

But one of the issues~and it has come up with the Van East Cross~what happens in a densifying city when a public art hallmark is going to be overshadowed?

Vancouver City Council has declared there is a “global state of climate emergency“. Staff are to return in 90 days with updated plans to reflect a growing sense that time is running out, and that missing climate change mitigation targets is a practice that has to end.

It turns out that famous rock stars have similar neighbour complaints when undergoing renovations in their personal houses. The difference is they can add a dimension to the dispute that is befitting a rock star.

As the BBC reports Robbie Williams the best-selling solo artist in the United Kingdom lives next to Jimmy Page, the founder and lead guitarist for the group Led Zeppelin. All was relatively quiet until Robbie Williams after five years of permit applications and planning, obtained approval with conditions to build a swimming pool in the ground floor of his house in London’s Holland Park.

Jimmy Page has lived next door for 46 years in a heritage Grade 1 listed mansion and was afraid that the excavating for the pool next door would seriously impact his foundation.

Normal people might go back and engage their municipalities, or lawyer up. But not these two rock stars. Robbie Williams turned up the volume of Black Sabbath music projecting to Mr. Page’s property, adding in Pink Floyd and Deep Purple songs, which “he knows upsets” Mr. Page.

Robbie Williams has also been dressing up as Mr. Page’s fellow band member Robert Plant, complete with a long hair wig and a rotund stuffing on his midriff.

All of this was documented in a letter to the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea. No surprise that a spokesman for Robbie Williams called the complaint “a complete fabrication and nonsense.”

You can take a look at the YouTube video below from last summer where Jimmy Page described the situation, and the restoration he has done on Tower House.

Coming to Vancouver City Council from staff sometime real soon now are the parameters of a Citywide Plan process. It promises to be the manifestation in studies, debate, framing and motions of the biggest issue facing the city and its leaders: Housing. What else.

Let’s talk about Portland’s success in not only getting their very own designed bathroom available to the public, but one so cool it even has its own patent. And this is nothing new, Portland was busy installing their fifth public washroom in 2012, customized with art by students in a local primary school. You can see the YouTube of the official unveiling of the Portland Loo below.

The design process for this washroom as outlined in CityLab was unique in that Portland looked at other municipalities’ public toilets and realized that the privacy of them allowed for “nefarious” activities to occur in them.

You have to like any city planner who says the best piece of advice he has is to learn to “listen really well”. But Jason Thorne is no ordinary planner~as the City of Hamilton’s general manager of planning and economic development for six years he’s seen the historic downtown revitalized and Hamilton emerge as a “music town” with venues and enthusiastic performers coming to the city.

Located on Lake Ontario with a population on the plus side of 500,000, Hamilton has unique opportunities to reinvent itself with Mr Thorne’s very broad portfolio, which includes “land use planning and economic development, but also tourism and culture, transportation, bylaw enforcement, business licensing and parking” .

The Globe and Mail’s Alex Bozikovic describes how the small stuff like “live music, street festivals, helping cyclists get around creates a sense of place and pride.”